Genealogy, Family History, and Temple Work
Those who know I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (i.e., I am a Mormon), may know that we seem to place a large emphasis on not our living families but also our family histories. The LDS church is known for its extensive Family History Libraries and Centers throughout the world, for its free online program, FamilySearch, and maybe even our partnering with the International Genealogical Index to digitise census, birth, marriage, and death records. Growing up in the church, I never really did much with family history. Sure, from time to time I would write out a four or five generation pedigree chart, but I didn't know my family's stories. (There were a lot of reasons for this that I won't go into here, but suffice it to say that there were a lot of hard feelings when my parents left Pennsylvania and then left the church they had both been raised in.) As a young adult, I first began to dabble in family history when I was asked to lead and...